Why do some say that solar power would reduce oil dependency?
by admin on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 | 12 Comments
Electrical power in US is almost entirely fueled by domestic sources. Coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. With a very small portion from sun and wind. Oil isn’t used at all.
What part of home heating oil don’t you understand?
For being so called Conservatives you people certainly do not seem to want to conserve .
Where did you get your GED.
If electricity was less expensive then it would be feasible for people to convert their homes from things like oil to electricity thus decreasing the demand for oil..
I don’t know.
You obviously don’t live in the Northeast, where No. 2 fuel oil is used extensively.
Transportation drives our oil appetite, not electricity. Solar power would only work if we invent an electric tractor trailer that is charged using solar.
There is quite a bit of oil used for energy production (actually.. solar power plants mostly use oil as well which is kind of ironic), but in comparison to hydro, coal and natural gas it pales in comparison.
Most people are unaware what oil is actually used for. It’s basically used for everythign else haha (everything from paints to industrial fertilizers).
I don’t think it means dependency on foreign sources. It means our peoples dependency on our oil and gas. I am 100% in favor of solar and wind energy for our Country, especially if it reduces the money we individually have to spend on power.
That made no sense to me either.
While there actually are a few, very few, oil fired plants left, the impact on oil use is negligible so the connection between solar power use and oil generated power is non-existent.
Solar is a great thing, but not the answer to any energy problem at present. The efficiency yield is too small, and they are too expensive to produce for any large scale commercial use, with the exception of “peak shaving” with grid tied systems. Most components have a pay back time that exceeds their life span. You use solar when you get a grant or when there is no other practical conventional method available.
There are oil fired electric generating plants, but they account for about 1% of the total output in MWatts.
I am an advocate of solar energy , but my training and research indicates that we are some way off from it being a panacea. There is a much more positive future for solar heated steam generation particularly in the warmer sunnier states. Solar electric panels are at best about 10% efficient and loose much of that when the heat up. You don’t have those losses with the solar steam systems.
I’m a big fan of solar, but still agree with you – for the short term, at least. The impact of solar on importing oil will be small for the near future, since we use so much of it in gasoline for transportation. There are exceptions, of course – Hawaii generates a lot of its electricity from diesel, so photovoltaic has a big impact. And even more, natural gas is not common there, so a solar water heater displaces a lot of electricity that would otherwise be used.
For the medium term, I think our best chance of reducing oil imports will be to take conservations measures, and to use natural gas in vehicles, and biodiesel harvested from algae. If we get a solid electric car, that will change the whole transportation equation, too. We would need to reconfigure the electric grid for more distributed production and storage. Then connecting solar in unlimited amounts could displace other forms of fuel. That would be almost long term.
For the long term, our best bets will be to reduce global population. I will likely not live to see that day.